Addressing Homelessness in Brisbane and Moreton Bay

Early in my career in Chicago, I got to know a man who regularly sat outside the building I worked in and was homeless. He ended up without a place to live because he didn't have a safety net when he lost his job. When I met him he was determined to get into a housing program after years on the streets—winters were getting harder and harder on his body. He was *overjoyed* when he got onto a waitlist for an apartment with an organization. He checked in with the program every month. It took 1.5 years before he was off the waitlist and in an apartment—1.5 years, after years of living on the street. Sometimes people have to wait *much* longer, there is no housing program available, or navigating the administrative part of applying is out of reach. Later, when he got his apartment, he beamed when he spoke of *his apartment* and *his fridge*—dignities and resources that are so important. Yet so many people do not have them, and so many of us that do take them for granted. People who do not have a house or apartment are ordinary people just trying to survive after facing bad luck and hard circumstances. They deserve dignity, respect, services, and housing. In a society with so much—safety, housing, & food are not things that so many people should be forced to do without. We should consider the ways our society needs to change to make homelessness far less common. We need to address the problems in our society that create homelessness, instead of harassing, hiding, or criminalizing people who are homeless. +++++ “Arresting or citing people living on the streets does not combat homelessness. Tearing down encampments on public property where people are trying to survive does not help people overcome misery. It simply adds to that misery. The police, whose primary tools are tickets, arrests and force, are not an answer to poverty and homelessness. For several years, I have been part of a free legal clinic for people living on the streets in Los Angeles whom police have ticketed for offenses related to their unhoused status — offenses such as sleeping on the beach or sitting on the sidewalk. Tickets carry fines that can reach hundreds of dollars, more than people struggling to survive on Social Security or general relief payments, and even low-paying jobs, can possibly afford. Unpaid tickets lead to arrest warrants and time in jail. Arrests lead to further suffering, lost liberty, exposure to violence and disease in jail, and loss of property such as clothing, medications, bedding, family photos and legal papers.”

Seattle doubles down on tiny houses to fight homelessness. This fall, the city will launch two new tiny home villages (about 104 units total), bringing the total to 13 city-funded sites. With supportive services, onsite hygiene, and trained case management, these villages are helping individuals move toward permanent housing, 46% of residents exit into stable homes, and just 4% return to the streets within six months. It’s not just shelter, it’s a solution. Seattle’s model shows what it means to combine compassion with strategy. 🏠✨ #Seattle #Homelessness #HousingFirst #TinyHomes #SocialImpact #Community https://lnkd.in/gWGX-FbC

Protect Housing Vouchers — Protect Our Community By Julien Laurent, Founder & Executive Director, Unity Bridge Project When we talk about homelessness in Long Beach, the conversation often turns to numbers: 3,595 people experiencing homelessness in 2025 — a 6.5% increase from the year before. But behind each number is a family, a student, or a neighbor trying to hold on to stability in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country . One of the most effective tools we have had in recent years is the Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) program. Since 2021, these vouchers have kept 582 families housed in Long Beach . For many, it meant the difference between sleeping in a car and keeping their children in school, or between escaping abuse and falling into homelessness. But this lifeline is under threat. Unless Congress acts, the program will end on December 31, 2025, putting hundreds of families at risk of losing their housing . At Unity Bridge Project, we work with LGBTQ+ youth, survivors of trauma, and those experiencing homelessness for the first time. We see every day how fragile stability can be. Families who lose their vouchers aren’t just losing housing — they’re losing safety, community, and hope. Ending the voucher program doesn’t just fail our neighbors — it hurts our entire city. When people are forced back into homelessness, the costs ripple through emergency services, hospitals, and schools. It is far more cost-effective — and humane — to keep people housed than to try to rehouse them after the fact. We need our leaders at every level — City, County, State, and Federal — to fight to protect Emergency Housing Vouchers. Long Beach has proven that when given the resources, we can use them effectively and get results. Now we need to make sure those resources don’t disappear. Our community deserves more than temporary solutions. We need long-term commitments that keep families safe, youth supported, and every person housed with dignity.

I’m delighted to share the launch of the Downtown Homelessness Task Force, a powerful new collaboration between the City of Austin, the Downtown Austin Alliance, and many other local, state, and community partners. This initiative embodies our shared commitment to tackling homelessness by mitigating inflow (ensuring people remain housed, are not released to the streets, or are not brought to the streets of Austin) and maximizing outflow (ensuring that every unhoused individual can quickly and effectively transition into shelter, housing, or diversion programs with dignity). What makes this task force especially promising is the breadth of partnerships behind it. The partners joining us in this effort include Integral Care, Downtown Austin Community Court, Central Health, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, APD, Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO), Trinity Center, Travis County Attorney’s Office, Austin-Travis County EMS, the District Attorney’s Office, and many more! This truly is a collaborative effort to drive compassionate and effective change. By year’s end, this task force will deliver a clear framework of policies, partnership strategies, and implementation timelines—all anchored in a results-driven approach. Although geographic in focus, this model of collaboration and coordinated action has the potential to become a template for replication across the city. By honing our strategies downtown and producing actionable policy recommendations, the task force can inform and inspire similar efforts in other neighborhoods. This new taskforce is a bold step forward, fueled by optimism, shared responsibility, and the belief that meaningful progress is possible when agencies unite around a common goal. I look forward to co-chairing this collaborative group to create lasting solutions to homelessness. Read our press release here: https://lnkd.in/g3Xxm--4

A Different Perspective on Housing First I recently read an article criticizing Housing First as a failed approach. While I understand the concerns raised, my experience working directly with individuals and families exiting homelessness tells a more complete story. Housing First is not a cure-all — but it does provide a foundation for stability. The challenge isn’t that Housing First “fails,” but that too often, housing is treated as the final step instead of the first one. Without continued case management, trauma-informed care, and community support, people risk falling back into homelessness. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working in nearly every corner of housing stability services: - As Director of Family Shelters and a Respite Program, I oversaw operations, staff, and direct support for families in crisis. - I worked as a housing case manager, including serving as a mobile case manager with Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) clients. - I was trained as a Community Health Worker (CHW), bridging the gap between housing, healthcare, and recovery. - I served as a Resident Services Coordinator for low-income housing, helping residents stabilize and thrive once housed. - And as Director of Clark County’s Coordinated Outreach Program, I oversaw teams going directly into encampments to connect people with housing and vital services. From all of these roles, I’ve seen the same truth: when people have both housing and long-term, trauma-informed support, they don’t just survive — they succeed. That’s why I founded Next Step Housing. Our mission is to ensure that housing is not just the end of homelessness, but the beginning of long-term recovery, stability, and integration into community life. Rather than abandoning Housing First, let’s strengthen it with the supports people truly need. What are your thoughts on Housing First and the importance of retention services in making it truly effective? #HousingFirst #HousingStability #NextStepHousing #TraumaInformedCare #SocialDeterminantsOfHealth Sean Moore

Forced relocation doesn't help connect people experiencing homelessness to basic necessities like hygiene, food, clothing, medical care, or housing. Instead it makes it more difficult for service providers to find them once they've scattered, meaning people who were on track to find stable housing will miss out on opportunities to improve their situation.

Data and facts versus perception. If you are trying to solve a problem, you can only truly solve it by knowing the true facts about the situation. Once you know that, you can develop a plan with benchmarks and continue to use data to see if your plan is succeeding or not. This applies to crime, homelessness, provision of EMS, community paramedicine, or pretty much anything. To do otherwise is either willful ignorance, negligence, or there is another purpose.

This is such a powerful example of how perception and data often tell very different stories, and how dominant narratives can shape public opinion (and policy) in misleading ways. It reminds me of research I did for a ride-hailing company, where many passengers assumed drivers were the biggest safety risk. But the data showed the opposite: drivers were actually the ones most frequently attacked, not the passengers. One shocking story can dominate headlines and distort how we see an entire group. That bias doesn’t just influence public opinion. It also shapes how safety features are designed and how policies are enforced. We saw things like surveillance tools focused on drivers instead of protections for them, simply because the assumption was that they were the threat. And it worked. Passengers felt safer. Passengers were the paying users, so the focus stayed there. Ironically, further research showed that one of the top reasons passengers chose our service was the quality and trustworthiness of the drivers. They felt safe because of them. But we never got leadership to invest meaningfully in driver retention or support. The thinking was that drivers were employees and should follow the rules because that's their job. End of story. This is exactly why good design and policy must be informed by data, not assumptions. The gap between perception and reality is not just inconvenient, it can create real harm.

This #StartsAtHomeDay I’ve been reflecting on the 25 years I’ve been working in housing. Entering the sector from having run a homeless outreach service it was so refreshing to be able to offer clients their own front door and - rather than maintaining people in homelessness - to be able to see how stable housing, with the right amount of support, was often able to have a truly transformative impact on people’s lives, and local communities.   For some people providing a safe home to call their own was all it took for individuals to rebuild their lives and take control of their own futures – for others it was only one part of the jigsaw: with the input from skilled empathic, resilient (and persistent) support workers being the difference that allowed clients to begin to build trust in others and address the issues that lay behind many of the reasons they became homeless in the first place. Supported housing has the potential to save millions for the NHS, adult social care and criminal justice systems by reducing the demand for more expensive services like emergency healthcare, homelessness support, and institutional settings, while improving peoples’ overall stability and wellbeing.   The need for supported housing is greater than ever Research shows that without supported housing: NHS hospital beds would face 110,000 more days of delayed discharge, and 41,000 more people would face homelessness.   A place to call home is only a start and unfortunately, funding for supported housing remains unstable, short-term and fragmented. The long-term nature of property investment requires certainty, yet supported housing providers often face short-term funding cycles that make it difficult to continue with, let alone expand, much-needed services. Whilst social landlords are perfectly placed to provide the safe, supported and psychologically informed environments so desperately needed, without a sound business case for investment, and with supported housing often being complex and expensive to manage, many housing associations (often those most capable of building significant numbers of supported housing units) have had to divest away from supported housing ….. to concentrate on addressing the housing crisis.   Today is Starts at Home Day, and it's our opportunity to show the government and decision makers why supported housing must be protected, and why we need action to #SaveOurSupportedHousing.

This is a challenging conversation and feelings run deep on every side. The causes and solutions to homelessness are complex, and it’s easy to get lost in debate. But regardless of our political views, we can agree on this: safe, stable, healthy housing is fundamental to human dignity and opportunity. Now, more than ever, we need to work together, across our differences, to expand access to housing, especially for those experiencing homelessness or teetering on the edge of it. The solutions will require creativity, resources, and cooperation from every level of government, the private sector, non-profits, and our communities. We may not agree on every policy detail, but we can agree on the urgency. Let’s start from that common ground and build something better together. https://lnkd.in/eR6YGr7Z